 Happy New Year! Can I still say that? I hope that you’ve all had a chance to recover from the flurry of the holidays. For a while it looked like everyone was going to be receiving their own private waterfront for Christmas, considering all that rain we had. But with the rain came spectacular rainbows. Reedsport, the Heart of the Dunes, the City of Rainbows…such a great place to be in the winter!
This week the Reedsport Main Street Program received two wonderful donations. The City Council approved a $10,000 transfer from the Urban Renewal Agency Budget to fund the next cycle of our Façade Improvement Grant. Because this funding can only be used for businesses in the Urban Renewal District, we must raise additional funds to offer the grant outside the district, as we did before. We also need to make a few minor changes to the grant application. If everything goes well, we should be able to offer another round of grants sometime within the next few months. You can find out more about the grant program here: http://reedsportmainstreet.com/facade-improvement-grant.html We also received a $10,000 grant from The Swindells Family Fund of The Oregon Community Foundation. This award will be used to fill the internship of RMSP Coordinator for another year. The support of an organization like The Oregon Community Foundation is greatly appreciated as our young program finds its legs. We hope to invest this money into making this program a positive force in our community for many years to come. Last month we had a visit from Andrew, a Coos Bay student from Portland State University’s School of Architecture who has offered to help us design a new pocket park to showcase our historic steam donkey once we finish getting it restored. Andrew has a background in geology as well, so he is prepared to tackle the challenge of designing something new for our downtown that should stand the test of time. As we approach Reedsport’s centennial celebration in 2019, this will be one of the many ways we can shine the spotlight on Reedsport’s last century in order to inspire us for the next hundred years. We have a few important dates lined up on the RMSP calendar. Next week our Promotions Committee is holding a meeting at 5:30pm on Tuesday, January 12th, at the Waterfront Restaurant. The Economic Development Committee will meet at 5pm on Wednesday, January 13th, in the conference room at City Hall. On Friday, January 15th, a group of representatives from the program will be touring the businesses who received a Façade Improvement Grant from 3pm to 6pm. The following week on Tuesday, January 19th, the Board of Directors meets at 5pm in the conference room at City Hall. Then, turn the page in your calendars to Saturday, February 6th, for our next Community Volunteer Cleanup Day. The last time we did this we had a great time cleaning up the town together, taking a break for a BBQ lunch. We haven’t decided on the project yet, but you can see pictures from some of our other projects here: http://reedsportmainstreet.weebly.com/volunteer-events.html Speaking of volunteering, we are probably going to host a booth at this year’s Confluence Festival, February 12th and 13th. It could be a great opportunity to promote the mission of the Reedsport Main Street Program, showcase our community to out-of-towners, and maybe even raise some money. If you would be willing to help staff our booth for part of the day, please contact me so I can figure out whether we can pull this off. If you volunteer to staff our booth for part of the time, you will get free admission to the festival for the rest of the day! That’s enough information to chew on for now, don’t you think? Stay awesome, Reedsport! Katie Lockard Main Street Program Coordinator Comments are closed.
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